Transition Wilmslow Biodigester Meeting – 31st January 2012

Many thanks to Daniel Galloway and Ray Brown for putting on a really interesting “double act” on Anaerobic Biodigestion for Transition Wilmslow!

Daniel, a graduate in chemistry with a Master’s in Environmental Sciences from the University of Manchester, is from Reaseheath College. He described the science behind Anaerobic Biodigestion, taking slurries and manures and food waste, subjecting it to bacterial degradation in an anaerobic tank, and making use of the resultant digestate for compost, as well as generating heat, gas and electricity. Reaseheath estimate they’ll save £10,000 a year just on fertiliser, not to mention the heat and power that they generate.

Ray, together with his wife Jill, is a dairy farmer from Holmes Chapel, who is planning a large community biodigester on a nearby disused MoD site (http://www.cresbiogas.com/). He’s been in discussion with Cheshire East about food waste, and we had a lively discussion about how Wilmslow could get involved. We concluded that the Cres biodigester, when up and running, could be used for Wilmslow waste, and Wilmslow residents might want to invest in it. We felt our tole might be to raise awareness of biodigestion and generate enthusiasm for it within our local community. Ray is going to keep us posted with developments.

There has been some discussion about whether we might want a local biodigester, if only as a “model” to raise awareness. Chris Frankland is going to look into the Rocket biodigester at University of Salford; Daniel forwarded details of a small containerised biodigester that has just come on the market, http://seabenergy.com/ which may be worth looking into.